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Talk:T-5. Joseph Liebgott
What is Liebgott, Exacly Joseph Liebgott is Roman Catholic but why is he Jewish,Colby James 23:14, June 19, 2012 (UTC) : After the war, Liebgott avoided all reunions and didn't stay in touch with the other men from Easy Company. When it was discovered that Liebgott was Catholic, the other men were stunned. All agreed that he was Jewish. His kids and grandkids later came forward and said they thought he was entirely Catholic (as they were). Other relatives have stated that they beleive that he was Jewish on his mother's side (there's genealogical evidence to support this) but he and his family chose to conceal it to avoid antisemitism. His dogtags indicated that he was Catholic, but most Jewish soldiers in WW2 listed themselves as Catholics in case they were captured. So there's two possibilities. : First, he might have been Jewish (ethnically or religiously) and concealed his heritage to avoid current or future antisemitism. Many Jews converted immediately before, during, and after the Holocaust even in the West, so Liebgott wouldn't have been alone in this. Antisemites hunt through your family history for "jewish blood", so that would explain the lengths he went to in order to hide it. It would also explain the name-change when his family arrived in America. : Second, it is possible that he might have been pure German (Austrian, actually) and concealed his german heritage to avoid prejudice or suspicion from his fellow soldiers. He spoke German with a strong accent that most Americans assumed was a Yiddish but might have been Austrian. If he felt that he'd lived a lie, that might be an alternative explanation for why he never got back in touch with his fellow veterans. : His family reports that people who knew him say that the protrayal in the TV show was hauntingly accurate: his mannerisms, his personality, and even his appearance. Based on the records, and all the testimony from fellow soldiers and family, I think it's most likely that he was a Catholic son of a Jewish mother who'd converted and then he kept his heritage a secret to protect himself and his descendants, just in case. But that's just an opinion. : I'd also say the portrayal of his Jewishness in the show was probably accurate. His fellow soldiers all believed that he was a Jew, so whether or not he actually was one, while he was in the Army he seems to have played the part. 19:08, May 10, 2016 (UTC) ::: I should add that on an Easy company internet forum, a member claiming to be related to Joseph Liebgott did extensive genealogical research over this question. He says that both Liebgott's father and his mother's family (Zimmermans) were ethnic germans living in Hungary, that they were ethnic Germans, and had always been Catholic. ::: If true, it lends credence to the theory that Liebgott concealed his ethnicity (or allowed other people to draw assumptions and never refuted them) to avoid any questions about his loyalties. ::: Of course, I ought to stress a third possibility: that the veterans all simply misremembered. Most of them insisted that they'd all thought Liebgott was Jewish, but they made other mistakes in their recollections that have since been documented. ::: However, this is a case where HBO faithfully reproduced Stephen Ambrose's book, and where Ambrose went off the veterans' recollections. Historical research will eventually settle this, but we'll never know for sure where the story came from. 19:22, May 10, 2016 (UTC)